THE RED, BLACK AND GREEN REVOLUTIONARY ECO­MUSIC BIG BAND

featuring the music of Cal Massey and Fred Ho

 
Tickets $20, Students $10 ( box office only.)

Considered the “best Baritone Saxophonist of all Time” (The New Yorker) Fred Ho stands alone as a one­of­a­kind revolutionary composer, writer, raw foodchef, sartorialist, and master musician. As the youngest to ever receive the Duke Ellington Composition award, a recipient of the Harvard Arts Medal, and a Guggenheim Fellowship winner, Fred Ho’s interdisciplinary works have permanently altered the landscape­­and pigmentation­­of New American music, theatre, and performance art forever.

Suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer, Fred Ho presents what will likely be his final public work with the Red, Black and Green Eco­Music Big Band. In honor of Black history month, the band will perform the work of legendary composer Cal Massey, writer of the long­lost jazz opus The Black Liberation Movement Suite (1969). Mr. Ho will also present his final long form work, co­written with his conductor Marie Incontrera, The Revolutionary Gardens of Harlem Suite: A Tribute to Clifford Thornton. In the tradition of all of Fred Ho’s dramatic musical works, questions of power and politics guide the music. The concert aims to tie the politics of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements to the burning question of our times: the fate of the planetary ecology in light of rising sea levels, species extinctions and genetically modified

food systems. How can the example set by the selfless and dignified activists of the Black Liberation struggle guide the flame of the fight for a livable planet today?

The 16­piece Eco­Music Big Band includes some of the nation’s most acclaimed jazz musicians, including bass trombonist Earl McIntyre (Duke Ellington, Mel Lewis/Thad Jones), trumpeter Winston Byrd (Paquito D’ Rivera, Clark Terry), and Fred Ho’s saxophone protégé Ben Barson (Arturo O’Farrill, Craig Harris). Tenor saxophonist and distinguished jazz scholar Salim Washington (Pharoah Sanders, Randy Weston) will be accompanying the tour as performer and a speaker,

having worked with the music of Cal Massey for decades.